DR. WEST'S HOME.
The house of Dr. West was already lighted up. Gas at its front door, gas
at its surgery door, gas inside its windows: no habitation in the place
was ever so extensively lighted as Dr. West's. The house was inclosed
with iron railings, and on its side--detached--was the surgery. A very
low place, this surgery; you had to go down a step or two, and then
plunge into a low door. In the time of the last tenant it had been used
as a garden tool-house. It was a tolerably large room, and had a
tolerably small window, which was in front, the door being on the side,
opposite the side entrance of the house. A counter ran along the room at
the back, and a table, covered with miscellaneous articles, stood on the
right. Shelves were ranged completely round the room aloft, and a pair
of steps, used for getting down the jars and bottles, rested in a
corner. There was another room behind it, used exclusively by Dr. West.
Seated on the counter, pounding desperately away at something in a
mortar, as if his life depended on it, was a peculiar-looking gentleman
in shirt-sleeves. Very tall, very thin, with legs and arms that bore the
appearance of being too long even for his tall body, great hands and
feet, a thin face dark and red, a thin aquiline nose, black hair, and
black prominent eyes that seemed to be always on the stare--there sat
he, his legs dangling and his fingers working. A straightforward,
honest, simple fellow looked he, all utility and practicalness--if there
is such a word. One, plain in all ways.
It was Janus Verner--never, in the memory of anybody, called anything
but "Jan"--second and youngest son of Lady Verner, brother to Lionel.
_He_ brother to courtly Lionel, to stately Decima, son to refined Lady
Verner? He certainly was; though Lady Verner in her cross moods would
declare that Jan must have been changed at nurse--an assertion without
foundation, since he had been nursed at home under her own eye. Never in
his life had he been called anything but Jan; address him as Janus, or
as Mr. Verner, and it may be questioned if Jan would have answered to
it. People called him "droll," and, if to be of plain, unvarnished
manners and speech is to be droll, Jan decidedly was so. Some said Jan
was a fool, some said he was a bear. Lady Verner did not accord him any
great amount of favour herself. She had tried to make Jan what she
called a gentleman, to beat into him suavity, gracefulness, tact, gloss
of speech and bearing, something between a Lord Chesterfield and a Sir
Roger de Coverley; and she had been obliged lo give it up as a hopeless
job. Jan was utterly irreclaimable: Nature had made him plain and
straightforward, and so he remained. But there was many a one that the
world would bow down to as a model, whose intrinsic worth was poor
compared to unoffending Jan's. Lady Verner would tell Jan he was
undutiful. Jan tried to be as dutiful to her as ever he could; but he
_could not_ change his ungainly person, his awkward manner. As well try
to wash a negro white.
Lady Verner had proposed that Jan should go into the army, Jan (plain
spoken as a boy, as he was still) had responded that he'd rather not go
out to be shot at. What _was_ she to do with him? Lady Verner peevishly
asked. She had no money, she lamented, and she would take care Jan was
not helped by Mr. Verner. To make him a barrister, or a clergyman, or a
Member of Parliament (it was what Lady Verner said), would cost vast
sums of money; a commission could be obtained for him gratis, in
consideration of his father's services.
"Make me an apothecary," said Jan.
"An apothecary!" echoed Lady Verner, aghast. "That's not a gentleman's
calling."
Jan opened his great eyes. Had he taken a liking for carpentering, he
would have deemed it gentlemanly enough for him.
"What has put an apothecary's business into your head?" cried Lady
Verner.
"I should like the pounding," replied Jan.
"The pounding!" reiterated Lady Verner, in astonishment.
"I should like it altogether," concluded Jan, "I wish you'd let me go
apprentice to Dr. West."
Jan held to his liking. In due course of time he was apprenticed to Dr.
West, and pounded away to his heart's content. Thence he went to London
to walk the hospitals, afterwards completing his studies in Paris. It
was at the latter period that the accident happened to Jan that called
Lionel to Paris. Jan was knocked down by a carriage in the street, his
leg broken, and he was otherwise injured. Time and skill cured him. Time
and perseverance completed his studies, and Jan became a licensed
surgeon of no mean skill. He returned to Deerham, and was engaged as
assistant to Dr. West. No very ambitious position, but "it's good enough
for Jan," slightingly said Lady Verner. Jan probably thought the same,
or he would have sought a better. He was four-and-twenty now. Dr. West
was a general practitioner, holding an Edinburgh degree only. There was
plenty to do in Deerham and its neighbourhood, what with the rich and
what with the poor. Dr. West chiefly attended the rich himself and left
Jan to take care of the poor. It was all one to Jan.
Jan sat on the counter in the surgery, pounding and pounding. He had
just come in from his visit to Deerham Court, summoned thither by the
slight accident to his sister Decima. Leaning his two elbows on the
counter, his pale, puffy cheeks on his hands, and intently watching Jan
with his light eyes, was a young gentleman rising fifteen, with an apron
tied round his waist. This was Master Cheese; an apprentice, as Jan once
had been. In point of fact, the pounding now was Master Cheese's proper
work, but he was fat and lazy, and as sure as Jan came into the surgery,
so sure would young Cheese begin to grunt and groan, and vow that his
arms were "knocked off" with the work. Jan, in his indolent manner--and
in motion and manner Jan appeared intensely indolent, as if there was no
hurry in him; he would bring his words, too, out indolently--would lift
the pounding machine aloft, sit himself down on the counter, and
complete the work.
"I say," said young Cheese, watching the progress of the pestle with
satisfaction, "Dame Dawson has been here."
"What did she want?" asked Jan.
"Bad in her inside, she says. I gave her three good doses of jalap."
"Jalap!" echoed Jan. "Well, it won't do her much harm. She won't take
'em; she'll throw 'em away."
"Law, Jan!" For, in the private familiarity of the surgery, young Cheese
was thus accustomed unceremoniously to address his master--as Jan was.
And Jan allowed it with composure.
"She'll throw 'em away," repeated Jan. "There's not a worse lot for
physic in all the parish than Dame Dawson. I know her of old. She
thought she'd get peppermint and cordials ordered for her--an excuse for
running up a score at the public-house. Where's the doctor?"
"He's off somewhere. I saw one of the Bitterworth grooms come to the
house this afternoon, so perhaps something's wrong there. I say, Jan,
there'll be a stunning pie for supper!"
"Have you seen it?"
"Haven't I! I went into the kitchen when she was making it. It has got a
hare inside it, and forcemeat balls."
"Who?" asked Jan--alluding to the maker.
"Miss Deb," replied young Cheese. "It's sure to be something extra good,
for her to go and make it. If she doesn't help me to a rare good
serving, sha'n't I look black at her!"
"It mayn't be for supper," debated Jan.
"Cook said it was. I asked her. She thought somebody was coming. I say,
Jan, if you miss any of the castor oil, don't go and say I drank it."
Jan lifted his eyes to a shelf opposite, where various glass bottles
stood. Among them was the one containing the castor oil. "Who has been
at it?" he asked.
"Miss Amilly. She came and filled that great fat glass pot of hers, with
her own hands; and she made me drop in some essence of cloves to scent
it. Won't her hair smell of it to-night!"
"They'll make castor oil scarce, if they go at it like that," said Jan
indifferently.
"They use about a quart a month; I know they do; the three of 'em
together," exclaimed young Cheese, as vehemently as if the loss of the
castor oil was personal. "How their nightcaps must be greased!"
"Sibylla doesn't use it," said Jan.
"Doesn't she, though!" retorted young Cheese, with acrimony. "She uses
many things on the sly that she pretends not to use. She's as vain as a
peacock. Did you hear about--"
Master Cheese cut his question short. Coming in at the surgery door was
Lionel Verner.
"Well, Jan! What about Decima? After waiting ages at the Court for you
to come downstairs and report, I found you were gone."
"It's a twist," said Jan. "It will be all right in a few days. How's
Uncle Stephen to-day?"
"Just the same. Are the young ladies in?"
"Go and see," said Jan. "I know nothing about 'em."
"Yes, they are in, sir," interrupted Master Cheese. "They have not been
out all the afternoon, for a wonder."
Lionel left the surgery, stepped round to the front door, and entered
the house.
In a square, moderate-sized drawing-room, with tasty things scattered
about it to catch the eye, stood a young lady, figuring off before the
chimney-glass. Had you looked critically into the substantial furniture
you might have found it old and poor; of a different class from the
valuable furniture at Verner's Pride; widely different from the light,
elegant furniture at Lady Verner's. But, what with white antimacassars,
many coloured mats on which reposed pretty ornaments, glasses and vases
of flowers, and other trifles, the room looked well enough for anything.
In like manner, had you, with the same critical eye, scanned the young
lady, you would have found that of real beauty she possessed little. A
small, pretty doll's face with blue eyes and gold-coloured ringlets; a
round face, betraying nothing very great, or good, or intellectual; only
something fascinating and pretty. Her chief beauty lay in her
complexion; by candle-light it was radiantly lovely, a pure red and
white, looking like wax-work. A pretty, graceful girl she looked; and,
what with her fascinations of person, of dress, and of manner, all of
which she perfectly well knew how to display, she had contrived to lead
more than one heart captive, and to hold it in fast chains.
The light of the gas chandelier shone on her now; on her blue gauzy
dress, set off with ribbons, on her sleepy, blue eyes, on her
rose-coloured cheeks. She was figuring off before the glass, I say,
twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and putting them in various
positions to try the effect; her employment, her look, her manner, all
indicating the very essence of vanity. The opening of the door caused
her to turn her head, and she shook her ringlets into their proper
place, and dropped her hands by her side, at the entrance of Lionel
Verner.
"Oh, Lionel! is it you?" said she, with as much composure as if she had
not been caught gazing at herself. "I was looking at this," pointing to
an inverted tumbler on the mantel-piece. "Is it not strange that we
should see a moth at this cold season? Amilly found it this afternoon
on the geraniums."
Lionel Verner advanced and bent his head to look at the pretty speckled
moth reposing so still on its green leaf. Did he see through the
artifice? Did he suspect that the young lady had been admiring her own
pretty face, and not the moth? Not he. Lionel's whole heart had long ago
been given to that vain butterfly, Sibylla West, who was gay and
fluttering, and really of little more use in life than the moth. How was
it that he had suffered himself to love _her_? Suffered! Love plays
strange tricks, and it has fooled many a man as it was fooling Lionel
Verner.
And what of Sibylla? Sibylla did not love him. The two ruling passions
of her heart were vanity and ambition. To be sometime the mistress of
Verner's Pride was a very vista of desire, and therefore she encouraged
Lionel. She did not encourage him very much; she was rather in the habit
of playing fast and loose with him; but that only served to rivet
tighter the links of his chain. All the love--such as it was!--that
Sibylla West was capable of giving, was in possession of Frederick
Massingbird. Strange tricks again! It was scarcely credible that one
should fall in love with _him_ by the side of attractive Lionel; but so
it had been. Sibylla loved Frederick Massingbird for himself, she liked
Lionel because he was the heir to Verner's Pride, and she had managed to
keep both her slaves.
Lionel had never spoken of his love. He knew that his marriage with
Sibylla West would be so utterly distasteful to Mr. Verner, that he was
content to wait. He knew that Sibylla could not mistake him--could not
mistake what his feelings were; and he believed that she also was
content to wait until he should be his own master and at liberty to ask
for her. When that time should come, what did she intend to do with
Frederick Massingbird, who made no secret _to her_ that he loved her and
expected to make her his wife? Sibylla did not know; she did not much
care; she was of a careless nature, and allowed the future to take its
chance.
The only person who had penetrated to the secret of her love for
Frederick Massingbird was her father, Dr. West.
"Don't be a simpleton, child, and bind yourself with your eyes
bandaged," he abruptly and laconically said to her one day. "When
Verner's Pride falls in, then marry whoever is its master."
"Lionel will be its master for certain, will he not?" she answered,
startled out of the words.
"We don't know who will be its master," was Dr. West's rejoinder. "Don't
play the simpleton, I say, Sibylla, by entangling yourself with your
cousin Fred."
Dr. West was one who possessed an eye to the main chance; and, had
Lionel Verner been, beyond contingency, "certain" of Verner's Pride,
there is little doubt but he would have brought him to book at once, by
demanding his intentions with regard to Sibylla. There were very few
persons in Deerham but deemed Lionel as indisputably certain of Verner's
Pride as though he were already in possession of it. Dr. West was
probably an unusually cautious man.
"It is singular," observed Lionel, looking at the moth. "The day has
been sunshiny, but far too cold to call these moths into life. At least,
according to my belief; but I am not learned in entomology."
"Ento--, what a hard word!" cried Sibylla, in her prettily affected
manner. "I should never find out how to spell it."
Lionel smiled. His deep love was shining out of his eyes as he looked
down upon her. He loved her powerfully, deeply, passionately; to him she
was as a very angel, and he believed her to be as pure-souled,
honest-hearted, and single-minded.
"Where did my aunt go to-day?" inquired Sibylla, alluding to Mrs.
Verner.
"She did not go anywhere that I am aware of," he answered.
"I saw the carriage out this afternoon."
"It was going to the station for Miss Tempest."
"Oh! she's come, then? Have you seen her? What sort of a demoiselle does
she seem?"
"The sweetest child!--she looks little more than a child!" cried Lionel
impulsively.
"A child, is she? I had an idea she was grown up. Have any of you at
Verner's Pride heard from John?"
"No."
"But the mail's in, is it not? How strange that he does not write!"
"He may be coming home with his gold," said Lionel.
They were interrupted. First of all came in the tea-things--for at Dr.
West's the dinner-hour was early--and, next, two young ladies, bearing a
great resemblance to each other. It would give them dire offence not to
call them young. They were really not very much past thirty, but they
were of that class of women who age rapidly; their hair was sadly thin,
some of their teeth had gone, and they had thin, flushed faces and large
twisted noses; but their blue eyes had a good-natured look in them.
Little in person, rather bending forward as they walked, and dressing
youthfully, they yet looked older than they really were. Their light
brown hair was worn in short, straggling ringlets in front, and twisted
up with a comb behind. Once upon a time that hair was long and tolerably
thick, but it had gradually and spitefully worn down to what it was now.
The Misses West were proud of it still, however; as may be inferred by
the disappearance of the castor oil. A short while back, somebody had
recommended to them castor oil as the best specific for bringing on
departed hair. They were inoffensive in mind and manners, rather simple,
somewhat affected and very vain, quarrelling with no person under the
sun, except Sibylla. Sibylla was the plague of their lives. So many
years younger than they, they had petted her and indulged her as a
child, until at length the child became their mistress. Sibylla was rude
and ungrateful, would cast scornful words at them and call them "old
maids," with other reproachful terms. There was open warfare between
them; but in their hearts they loved Sibylla still. They had been named
respectively Deborah and Amilly. The latter name had been intended for
Amelie; but by some mistake of the parents or of the clergyman, none of
them French scholars, Amilly, the child was christened and registered.
It remained a joke against Amilly to this day.
"Sibylla!" exclaimed Deborah, somewhat in surprise, as she shook hands
with Lionel, "I thought you had gone to Verner's Pride."
"Nobody came for me. It got dusk, and I did not care to go alone,"
replied Sibylla.
"Did you think of going to Verner's Pride this evening, Sibylla?" asked
Lionel. "Let me take you now. We shall be just in time for dinner. I'll
bring you back this evening."
"I don't know," hesitated Sibylla. The truth was, she had expected
Frederick Massingbird to come for her. "I--think--I'll--go," she slowly
said, apparently balancing some point in her mind.
"If you do go, you should make haste and put your things on," suggested
Miss Amilly. And Sibylla acquiesced, and left the room.
"Has Mr. Jan been told that the tea's ready, I wonder?" cried Miss
Deborah.
Mr. Jan apparently had been told, for he entered as she was speaking:
and Master Cheese--his apron off and his hair brushed--with him. Master
Cheese cast an inquisitive look at the tea-table, hoping he should see
something tempting upon it; eating good things forming the pleasantest
portion of that young gentleman's life.
"Take this seat, Mr. Jan," said Miss Amilly, drawing a chair forward
next her own. "Master Cheese, have the kindness to move a little round:
Mr. Jan can't see the fire if you sit there."
"I don't want to see it," said literal Jan. "I'm not cold." And Master
Cheese took the opportunity which the words gave to remain where he was.
He liked to sit in warmth with his back to the fire.
"I cannot think where papa is," said Miss Deborah. "Mr. Lionel, is it of
any use asking you to take a cup of tea?"
"Thank you, I am going home to dinner," replied Lionel. "Dr. West is
coming in now," he added, perceiving that gentleman's approach from the
window.
"Miss Amilly," asked Jan, "have you been at the castor oil?"
Poor Miss Amilly turned all the colours of the rainbow; if she had one
weakness, it was upon the subject of her diminishing locks. While
Cheese, going red also, administered to Jan sundry kicks under the
table, as an intimation that he should have kept counsel. "I--took--just
a little drop, Mr. Jan," said she. "What's the dose, if you please? Is
it one tea-spoonful or two?"
"It depends upon the age," said Jan, "if you mean taken inwardly. For
you it would be--I say, Cheese, what are you kicking at?"
Cheese began to stammer something about the leg of the table; but the
subject was interrupted by the entrance of Sibylla. Lionel wished them
good-evening, and went out with her. Outside the room door they
encountered Dr. West.
"Where are you going, Sybilla?" he asked, almost sharply, as his glance
fell upon his daughter and Lionel.
"To Verner's Pride."
"Go and take your things off. You cannot go to Verner's Pride this
evening."
"But, papa, why?" inquired Sibylla, feeling that she should like to turn
restive.
"I have my reasons for it. You will know them later. Now go and take
your things off without another word."
Sibylla dared not openly dispute the will of her father, neither would
she essay to do it before Lionel Verner. She turned somewhat unwillingly
towards the staircase, and Dr. West opened the drawing-room door,
signing to Lionel to wait.
"Deborah, I am going out. Don't keep the tea. Mr. Jan, should I be
summoned anywhere, you'll attend for me, I don't know when I shall be
home."
"All right," called out Jan. And Dr. West went out with Lionel Verner.
"I am going to Verner's Pride," he said, taking Lionel's arm as soon as
they were in the street. "There's news come from Australia. John
Massingbird's dead."
The announcement was made so abruptly, with so little circumlocution or
preparation, that Lionel Verner failed at the first moment to take in
the full meaning of the words. "John Massingbird dead?" he mechanically
asked.
"He is dead. It's a sad tale. He had the gold about him, a great
quantity of it, bringing it down to Melbourne, and he was killed on the
road; murdered for the sake of the gold."
"How have you heard it?" demanded Lionel.
"I met Roy just now," replied Dr. West. "He stopped me, saying he had
heard from his son by this afternoon's post; that there was bad news in
the letter, and he supposed he must go to Verner's Pride, and break it
to them. He gave me the letter, and I undertook to carry the tidings to
Mrs. Verner."
"It is awfully sudden," said Lionel, "By the mail, two months ago, he
wrote himself to us, in the highest spirits. And now--dead!"
"Life, over there, is not worth a month's purchase just now," remarked
Dr. West; and Lionel could but note that had he been discussing the
death of a total stranger, instead of a nephew, he could only have
spoken in the same indifferent, matter-of-fact tone. "By all accounts,
society is in a strange state there," he continued; "ruffians lying in
wait ever for prey. The men have been taken, and the gold found upon
them, Luke writes."
"That's good, so far," said Lionel.
When they reached Verner's Pride, they found that a letter was waiting
for Frederick Massingbird, who had not been home since he left the house
early in the afternoon. The superscription was in the same handwriting
as the letter Dr. West had brought--Luke Roy's. There could be no doubt
that it was only a confirmation of the tidings.
Mrs. Verner was in the drawing-room alone, Tynn said, ready to go in to
dinner, and rather cross that Mr. Lionel should keep her waiting for it.
"Who will break it to her--you or I?" asked Dr. West of Lionel.
"I think it should be you. You are her brother."
Broken to her it was, in the best mode they were able. It proved a
severe shock. Mrs. Verner had loved John, her eldest born, above every
earthly thing. He was wild, random, improvident, had given her incessant
trouble as a child and as a man; and so, mother fashion, she loved him
best.